Kiel, who must sit the season due to transfer rules, was just one of the topics Tuberville covered.

"It's huge," Tuberville said of Kiel's decision to enroll at Cincinnati. "And when he decided to come here, he didn't decide to come here because of me or anybody else. He came here because of the offense we're running.

"He's kinda a pro-style guy. He wants to be a drop-back quarterback. He wants to learn protections and he wants to learn to read coverages. He wants to run an offense on the field by changing plays at the line of scrimmage, making decisions on pass routes. So that's the type of offense we run."

Tuberville, who was also the head coach at Auburn, Ole Miss, and Texas Tech and did stints as the defensive coordinator at Miami and Texas A&M, was asked if he thought his team would get a shot at the BCS Championship Game if the Bearcats finished undefeated in the new American Athletic Conference, which is essentially the old Big East.

"Well, it just depends," Tuberville said. "I think we're going to be compared to a couple of other conferences across the country. Boise State's conference (Mountain West) is going to be one. I would hope eventually if this conference can get off the ground, kind of like the Big East did in football, hopefully we can be compared to some of the other leagues, but we're going to have to earn that respect. We have to earn that confidence from a lot of people across the country.

"We're going to have to play good football. Basically, that's the bottom line. Not just one or two teams, but four or five teams. Most conferences in this country are top heavy with four or five teams that usually control it every year. I think we're going to be a little more balanced."